We’ve arrived at Canazei in the Italian Dolomites after spending most of the day on the road, leaving Switzerland behind and having an overnight rest stop at the Berghotel Franzenshöhe.

We’d already had our first taste of the Stelvio Pass on our way to the hotel the night before, which despite fading light was already the most fun we’d had on the road since we started our trip. Similar to previous mountain roads, the steep incline, sharp-hairpins and stunning views we’re all present and correct, but for some reason the turns and sheer drops seemed just that slightly bit more perilous.

Our rest stop was just over the Pass, and for somewhere that was only open for four or five months of the year (due to the road closures over the winter), proved to be considerably nicer than we expected; as well as giving us a superb view Stilfserjoch Mountain, we had one of the best meals we’d had in a fortnight.

We got underway early this morning, and made our way back to the top of the ‘Pass to check out the small skier’s town we passed through the night before. It seemed as though everyone with a German or Italian supercar was out there in force (along with the usual super bike crowd), eating wursts (I thought this was Italy?) and generally checking our each other’s wheels. As we had a little time to spare, we went up the skier’s cable car, aiming to get a better view of what lay before us on the way back down the mountain.

After eating our own sausage sandwiches and watching the real life (but slightly less entertaining) episode of Top Gear that seemed to be unfolding in front of us, we started back down the other side of the mountain. Having already come up the west side, we thought we would knew what would be ahead of us; snow at the top, rocky and rugged with the same amazing twists and turns.

What we experienced on the way down was a little like what you would expect in a movie; a perfect, smooth road with vibrant greens, blues and whites everywhere you looked. It was almost like someone had taken a beautiful alpine scene, dropped a rally course on it and fiddled with the colour saturation in Photoshop to get it just right.

Weirdly enough, despite petrol-head convention at the top of the pass, there were surprisingly few sports-cars actually on the road; bicycles, motorbikes and ordinary family cars seemed to be the order of the day; our reasonably-priced rally inspired Suzuki seemed to be the sportiest thing there, which I believe handled the situation perfectly.